I Read It Because It's Beautiful

I Read It Because It’s Beautiful
by Karen Morrow Durica

Somehow a life without poetry seems…
Dismal
Empty
Flat—
Not much.

So each day in my classroom I read…
Sonnets
Haikus
Free verse—
And such.

An observer sat in my room one day…
Noted poem’s title
Evaluated delivery
Recorded “lesson” sequence—
Said dryly: “It seems

There’s no connection curricular-wise…
No anticipatory set
No vocabulary drill
No comprehension query—
Do they know what it means?”

I could have contrived a defense or two, but…
Spirits flowed with peaceful joy
Honesty prevailed
Simple truth explained—
“I read it because it’s beautiful,” I said.

She didn’t quite frown but recalled all the same, “We’ve…
Standards to meet
Timelines to keep
Pages to cover—
Important content to be read.”

I looked from her to my students’ gaze; they…
Had relished the words
Danced with the rhythm
Mused with the meaning—
Were richer in spirit than when we began.

I read it because it was beautiful. And beauty is…
Never superfluous
Never irrelevant
Always needed—
Always in my “lesson” plan.

THIS

"When studies control for poverty, American children do very well on international tests, indicating that there is nothing seriously wrong with our educational system. Our scores are low only because we have so many children living in poverty, and the highest of all industrialized countries (22.5%, compared to Sweden's 2.5%).
Improving education is not the path to eliminating poverty. Eliminating poverty is the path to better school achievement. All the money going to new standards, new tests, and of course new textbooks, should be spent on protecting children from the effects of poverty: Proper nutrition (no child left unfed), health care, and access to books."

http://www.schoolsmatter.info/2010/07/improve-education-to-eliminate-poverty.html

Easier Said Than Done

Well, I've been in training for four whole days now and I can't say that I've learned much. I appreciate the fact that we are at a nice conference center and we have excellent food. I REALLY appreciate the fact that no one has yelled at me or berated me or made ridiculous demands of me. I'm being treated like a professional and it is super weird.

I WANT to believe them. I WANT to get on board with their hokey behavior management plans and their ideas and their "don't ever yell at the kids" and their "kids just need love" philosophies. But I've been there a little too long. In fact, I do or have tried to do a whole lot of the things that they want us to do...and it doesn't always work. So, my question is, what then? What happens when your "Caught You Doing Good" tickets and your Good Behavior Breakfasts don't stop the fires and the fighting? Is there any course correction or are we stuck?

Besides the "never yell at kids" thing, today we also heard about how you have to ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS (50 more alwayses) have a POSITIVE! attitude. Okay, get back to me in November on that. If you still have a positive attitude then, I promise to have a positive attitude then.

I hate to sound bitter and jaded. Like I said, I WANT to believe in them. And I definitely want our school to not suck. But you read this blog, do YOU think we can just fly in there with treats and posters and smiling faces and everything will be okay?

Notes from The Heather Vinson School of Teaching

So I was talking to a co-worker this morning about one of the sessions we have to attend for the conference tomorrow. It's called, "The Genius in All of Us: Why Sorting Children Isn’t Just Unfair, It’s Bad Science." First of all, what a ridiculous title. There's not a hidden genius in all of us, sorry to break it to you. I mean, I get it, never tell a kid he's dumb...but seriously.

Tracking is very controversial and always has been. I understand why people hate it. Our school (used to I guess) use it. One of the many problems was that it wasn't always accurate and it sometimes did make children live up the stereotype of whatever class they were in. (Last year you were so smart, what happened?!) They also never listened to teachers about who needed to go where (it was based totally on test scores....and sometimes even then it was just arbitrary assignments) and behavior problems were moved to higher classes so they could be "controlled." And once you do it one year, every year after that kids will think that being in "7-01" means you're smart, but "7-06" means you're dumb. Granted, everything my school touches turns to shit, so maybe other schools have a better handle on tracking.

From my own experience, I did the whole Advanced Diploma College Prep Whatever The Hell You Want To Call It when I was in high school. I guess I was tracked? But you know, it wouldn't have killed me to learn how to take apart a car engine or build a birdhouse. Why can't you have vocational AND college prep classes together for the same kids?

ANYWAY, this co-worker said, "That's crap. I'd be pissed if my smart child was put in a class with a bunch of kids who didn't know how to read."

And I get that too. People say the "smart" kids will help bring the other kids up, but those people are overestimating the niceness and helping nature of middle school children. They'll either get frustrated with them or just let them copy their work. You may have a few (mostly girls) who are willing to help the low achievers, but what benefit are they getting re-doing work they already understand instead of moving on to more complicated subject matter? And frankly, I LIKE my separated kids. I love being able to have an actual debate in my 01 and 02 classes (the others just end up screaming at each other) and I like knowing that for 03 and 04 I'll have to slow it down a little and put in a little more explanation.

Since this is an issue that I can't decide how I feel about it, here at The Heather Vinson School of Teaching, we have a whole new philosophy. We have tracking, but it's not based on academic performance, it's based on MOTIVATION. Do you care about school? Do you try to do your work? You're in 01. Do you miss 20+ days of school, come to school high, write your name on your paper and go to sleep? You're in 06. I'm not saying we'd put our little 06 kids in the corner and forget about them, but CLEARLY they need more help than just a classroom teacher can deal with. And for the middle kids, we could base our instruction around how motivated they are.

My 01 kids would barely hear me talk. I'd give them projects and papers and research issues out the wazoo. I'd put them in groups with varied abilities and let 'em roll because they are MOTIVATED to learn. Those kids don't need me. They need me to get it started and provide the materials, but if they like learning, who am I to say what information and at what pace they should go? The middle kids, they'd need a little bit more guidance, perhaps some short lectures and small one-class period projects and activities. They know why school exists, they know what they SHOULD be doing, they just don't do it. Those kids need me to get them excited about learning and to show them HOW to learn. I got that.

And as for those kids at the bottom, well they are special cases. One of my other co-workers, last year he got really tired of their attitudes and them ruining classes so he put his desks into two groups--the "DOs" and the "DO NOTs". He let the kids decide where to sit. Then he taught the "DOs" and the DO NOTs just sat in the back and slept or talked or whatever. What are you to do when you have almost half a class of students who couldn't care less about school or learning? YOU GET THEM AWAY FROM THE KIDS THAT DO CARE. They are NOT going to be positively affected by the other ones. If anything, the other ones wil be negatively affected by THEM. These kids need counselors and home visits and parent conferences and drug testing and school supplies and basically anything you can think of that a child would need. They need to be taught the importance of education.

What do you think?

The Day Before

Well, tomorrow I'm off to a conference. The people that took over our school have a national conference here in Baltimore and we've been asked to attend. I'm going to sessions entitled "Parent and Community Involvement for Student Success" (WHAT?! That is so crazy! Who knew...) and "A Curriculum of Engagement."
I'm trying to hold back on the cynical and bitter part of being a teacher in this city and trying to keep some of the hope that these people will help us...but it's not looking good.
After the two day conference, we have to go to a week and a half of professional development. I'll keep you updated.

In other news, they've hired us a new principal and assistant principal. I've met neither one of these people and nobody knows anything about them. What I've found out so far is that both have served as principals in other Baltimore City Schools for ONE YEAR TOTAL. (Which makes me wonder, if they are any good, why didn't their school keep them?) I've been told they are very young.

It's not looking good, friends.

What The Hell Is This?

This is the facebook friend request I got this morning. He's in 6th grade.

Of Course

The other day I was looking through the Baltimore City Schools employee website to try and find a copy of my W-2. I stumbled upon my personal information, which stated that I had a degree in Communications from Tuskegee University. This is odd because I have a degree in Political Science and History from the University of Alabama. It also said that I have NO Master's Degree (I do, in teaching.)

So, according to their records, I'm not even qualified to be a teacher, and yet I've been on their payroll for more than 5 years. Way to stay on top of things, Baltimore.

"What's More Important, Children or Numbers?"

300th Post!!!!!!!!!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lcm5IK0Aa5I

RANTS by Heather

This is going to be a random rant. I can do these types of things in the summer because I am not exhausted. So, I can read books and get really worked up about their content.

I read a lot of books about education, educating inner city youth, the inner city culture, etc. I read things I agree with, and things I STRONGLY disagree with. One things I do not read is those feel-good books that former inner-city teachers write after they've quit teaching about how they worked 20 hours a day and "saved" all the black kids. No thanks. (Probably linked it before, but here is the BEST ARTICLE EVER, just for good measure: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/19/opinion/19moore.html?_r=1&ex=157680000&en=e1a70ef41a0ef04d&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink )

For what it's worth, here's what I think:

1. I know I've talked about this before, but I CANNOT STAND the constant portrayal of teachers as martyrs. That if I **really** cared, I'd devote every waking moment to helping my students succeed. Sorry, but that is simply not a sustainable model. And, what are you DOING all of those hours? I mean, seriously.

2. I've read a lot about the KIPP model of schools. If you don't know about KIPP, basically the kids go to school from like 7am-5pm, have a longer school day and a longer school year. They are bombarded with learning. I have lots of problems with this, which I will expound upon. But my main problem is that it cannot be held as the standard for school reform because it is simply impossible to replicate on a large scale.

I get that maybe there are some parents out there that want this for their child. I also get that there are some parents that don't. It seems most people do not understand that second part. You want your kid to do well, but maybe you want to SEE your kid sometimes too. Learning is important, but so is family. Why should you be made to feel like you are a bad person/parent if you think that is simply too much?

And what about trying to make these kids successful WITHIN their neighborhood and their life? Aren't we trying to grow people here? So, they are in school for 90% of their childhood, but what happens when they go back home to the neighborhood? Do they enrich it? Or do they move away because it is "bad"? It seems to me that you should be trying to make the neighborhood itself better, rather than trying to "save" a select few from it.

KIPP has had major success in past years, and lots of critics say this is because they make parents sign a contract (we all know how many parents I'VE seen this school year) and because they can kick out low performers...which will of course inflate their scores.

3. I just read Geoffrey Canada's "Whatever It Takes." He is the founder of the Harlem Children's Zone, which does what I spoke about earlier: tries to transform the neighborhood instead of just the child. During the first half of the book, I was in complete agreement with him. You can't take one child and learn them to death and make everything okay. You have to look at the parents, the neighborhood, everything. He has Baby College, which teachers young mothers about cognitive development and reading to your child and things like that. At first my only concern was that he seems to have an endless supply of money. But while at first he talked constantly about transforming the whole neighborhood, towards the end you find out that to get into his elementary school, the parent has to sign the child up WHEN HE IS A BABY. Well, if you have a parent already that involved in their child's education, they aren't one of the "at-risk" ones.

4. Lastly, I hate Teach For America. Most of them that I've met have been taught that they are better than "regular" teachers and will go to great lengths to make sure you know it too. I read an article comparing them to going on a "two year jungle safari to teach the natives." Two years and then they go become investment bankers. Just FYI, hardly anyone is a decent teacher after two years. I only figured out what I was doing around year 3, and I'm still not great.

After all that rambling, my whole point is this: everyone who has a solution to fix schools is wrong. I don't know what the solution is either, but I know it's not these things. I know we need more money. I know teachers shouldn't have to deal with all the extra crap they have to put up with, they should be able teach. I know school success shouldn't be based on constant testing. I know kids should be taught to appreciate the process of learning, not rote memorization and "test-taking strategies." I know my kids need more than just extra algebra in the mornings--they need better nutrition, better medical care, more involved parents, earlier interventions, and more counseling.

P.S. I mostly hate all of these things because they have published books and made lots of money. Meanwhile I have this blog about--a white girl teaching black kids!!!---and yet, no famous book and no money. :( Oh well.

Sometimes You Have to Put Your Foot Down

Devin is in 7th grade.

His brother, Tevin, is in 8th grade.

Devin: "Miss Vinson, can I use your cellphone to call my brother?"

Me: "Tevin is right over there."

Devin: "No, my other brother."

Me: "...Is his name Kevin?"

Devin: "No."

Me: "Then, no, you can't."